Copyright ę 2001-2009 by
Mike Everhart

Last revised
09/27/2013

....in which Dr. Richard
Harlan names an extinct species of primitive whale Basilosaurus
or "King of the reptiles"

397

ARTICLE XII.

Notice of Fossil Bones found in the Tertiary Formation of the State of Louisiana. By
Richard Harlan, MD., &c. Read October 19, 1832.

IN conformity with a resolution recently passed
by this Society, requesting me to describe the osteological fossil remains presented by
Judge Bry, I have the honour to offer the following observations for publication in their
Transactions. The fossils consist of several fragments of vertebrŠ, and one of immense
size nearly perfect; together with specimens of the soil, and several osteological
fragments too much mutilated to offer any descriptive characters.

For the local history of these fossils we are
indebted to the following letter from the donor, addressed to our venerable President, Mr
Duponceau.

Philadelphia, July l2, 1832.

Dear Sir,

I have the honour to present to you, for the Society over which you preside,
some fossil bones, found on the Ouachita* river, in the state

____________________________

* As I spell the word Ouachita differently
from the apparently adopted mode, it may not be amiss to explain why I think that my
orthography should be retained. The etymology of the word is in one respect descriptive of
the country. The word Ouachita is composed of two Choctaw, words; to wit, ouac, a
buffalo, a cow, horned cattle in general, and chito, large, pronounced tchito,
bearing lightly on the initial t. It meant the country of large buffaloes, numerous herds
of those animals having formerly covered the prairies of Ouachita. All the names (now
translated into French) of River aux BŠufs, Bayou BŠuf, have the same
origin. These animals have disappeared before civilization, with the Indian tribes, whose
principal support they formed. They never remain long within hearing of the repeated
strokes of the axe or of the voice of the white man. Nothing is left to remind us of them
at Ouachita but the sound of this name, which may serve to keep in remembrance the
fact of their former undisturbed possession of the country. The common orthography, Washita,
destroys this illusion and means nothing in itself. By retaining the mode of spelling
which I have adopted, it may serve to show how languages the most remote may receive the
phraseology of one another.

The first settlers at Ouachita were French hunters, who adopted, with that
facility peculiar to their nation, not only the Indian mode of living, but, in some
instances, their expressions, Thus they found the country named Big Buffalo, and
they marked the different epochs of their lives by such expressions as these: l'annÚe
de la grande eau (1798); and l' annÚe de la grande ourse (1810), when
thousands of bears crossed the country, emigrating towards the west.

Vol. IV.-4 Z

398
FOSSIL BONES FOUND IN THE

of Louisiana, at a distance (south) of about fifty miles by land, and one
hundred and ten by water from the town of Monroe, in the parish of Ouachita, and in lat.
31░ 46' or 48'.

I regret that my very limited knowledge does not
permit me to add to this offer such a dissertation on the subject as would be useful or
even agreeable. A scientific memoir cannot be expected from one who has now spent the last
thirty years of his existence literally in the remotest forests of Louisiana, whose life
has during that long period been entirely devoted to agricultural pursuits, and who has
consequently been deprived of all means of keeping pace with the progress of science; yet
as I feel that it may be necessary to make you acquainted, as far as lies in my power,
with the locality of these bones, I beg leave to submit the following observations.

It would be useless to offer more than a few casual
remarks on the geology of Louisiana, which is better known to the Philosophical Society
than to myself. That part of the state, beginning at the foot of the highlands of Baton
Rouge, on the eastern side of the Mississippi, and at the hills in the parish of Cataouta
to the sea, is evidently soil of comparatively recent formation. You are probably
acquainted with the character of the different strata on which rests the lower part of
Louisiana. A description of them has been published as they occur on the Bayou * St John,
near the city of New Orleans, where

* As the most important point in making ourselves well
understood, is to attach to words a permanent meaning, conveying at once and correctly the
ideas we wish to express, I beg leave to observe that I understand the word bayou
to mean a stream which has little or no current; such as the Bayou de Siard, the Bayou
de la MÔchoire a I' Ours, which are hardly any thing more than natural drains to
the adjacent low lands. A creek I conceive to be a small stream running through the hills
and highlands with a brisk and continued current, and emptying itself into the bayous,
rivers, or overflowed lands. These two expressions are thus generally used in the upper
parts of Louisiana.

TERTIARY FORMATION OF LOUISIANA

.
399

an enterprising gentleman (Mr Elkins) undertook to bore for good water. He
reached to the depth of two hundred and twelve feet, but endeavoured in vain to bore
deeper. At that depth the soil appears to be of the same nature as the deposite now made
by the Mississippi, the intermediate strata being various; but no shells were discovered
except fragments of some bivalve, exactly similar to those now found in the Bayou
St John. Part of a crab was brought up by the auger, at a depth of one hundred and sixty
feet; and, if my memory serves me aright, a piece of a buck's horn was also found.

The hills, beginning at Cataouta, extend north to the
Arkansas river, and west to Red river, whence they spread to the Sabine. Through that
tract of country are interspersed overflowed lands, varying in extent according to the
magnitude of the creeks, of which they form the banks at low water, and ,which flow over
them at high water. In these hills very few ores are found except those of iron, which are
abundant in two different places; but no measures have yet been taken to ascertain their
value. The highest of the hills do not exceed eight hundred feet above high water mark;
and in many places they dwindle into gently rolling ground. These hills appear to be of a
much more ancient formation than the lower section of Louisiana. No rocks, however, enter
into their composition; but a few sandy stones and pebbles, nearly all siliceous,
are occasionally seen scattered on their summits, or in the beds of the numerous creeks
fed by springs issuing from them.

Sea shells are discovered in several places; I found
them on the highest ridge which divides the waters running into Red river from the
tributary streams of the Ouachita. The tract, by far the richest in calcareous substances,
is the one within the limits where fossil bones have been found, extending about fifteen
miles from north to south, and probably ten or twelve from east to west. Several years
ago, while rambling among these hills, I met with a small creek, the banks

400
FOSSIL BONES FOUND IN THE

of which are in some places thirty feet high, in which I
found many different species of sea shells, among others, pectenites, belemnites,
&c. At the same time, my attention was attracted by a quantity of cornua ammonis,
the largest of which did not exceed an inch and a half in diameter, while many were much
smaller.

The hill, in which the bones herewith presented were
found, is within the limits above described, at a distance of not more than two hundred
yards from the Ouachita river. About three years ago, after the occurrence of a long spell
of rainy weather, a part of the hill slid down near to the water's edge, and thereby
exposed twenty-eight of these bones, which had been until then covered by an incumbent
mass of earth about forty feet thick. They were imbedded in a bank of sea marl, a specimen
of which is added to the bones, as well as of the calcareous spar and talc also
found in the same hill. .I followed a horizontal vein of this marl, five or six inches
thick, which I traced to a distance of about forty feet, when !t sinks into the valley
under an angle of from twenty-five to thirty degrees. It appeared to have effloresced
where it had been long exposed to the influence of the atmosphere.

When these bones were first seen, they extended in a
line, which, from what the person living near the place showed me, comprised a curve,
measuring upwards of four hundred feet in length, with intervals, which were vacant. The
person referred to destroyed many of the bones by employing them instead of andirons in
his fire place, and I saved what remained from the same fate. I think, however, that a
great many more bones belonging to the same animal are yet covered, and will gradually
appear, as the soil and marl shall be washed off by the rain.

If I might presume to express an opinion as to the
animal to which these bones belong, I should venture to say that they were part of a sea
monster. The piece having the appearance of a tooth, which I gathered myself on the spot,
may assist in determining that point. To you, Mr. President, and to your learned
colleagues, who are so fully adequate to the task, I cheerfully relinquish the solution of
this problem, as well as the determination of the epoch of our globe when the

TERTIARY FORMATION OF LOUISIANA.

401

animal existed. Accept, my dear sir, the expression of my
great regard for yourself, and of my sincere, wishes for the prosperity of the useful
institution over which you preside.

Your friend and obedient servant,

H. BRY.

P. S. Duponceau, Esq.

President of the Philosophical Society, Philadelphia.

The geological formation in which these bones occur is
evidently tertiary, similar to that extensive belt which characterizes our Atlantic
borders. The piece of "sea-marl" alluded to in the above letter, is a
conglomerate mass of small marine shells, consisting principally of an extinct species of
Corbula, about to be described by Mr T. Conrad. who has met with a similar formation,
including the same shells, in Alabama. Most of these shells are comminuted; a few however
are perfect. On the upper surface of the mass, there remains a stratum of clay, half an
inch in thickness, inclosing pieces of crystallized carbonate of lime. The portion noticed
by Mr. Bry as displaying the appearance of a tooth, does in reality possess considerable
resemblance in size and form to the teeth of some of the fossil Sauriens; but, on closer
inspection, it is recognizable as a portion of the cast of a Pinna, with some of the shell
still remaining attached to its base.

The principal fossil which forms the subject of this
paper, consists of a vertebra of enormous dimensions, possessing characters which enable
us to refer it to an extinct genus of the order "Enalio-Sauri" of Conybeare,
which includes numerous extinct genera of marine lizards or crocodiles, generally
possessing gigantic proportions, which have hitherto been found only in the sub-cretaceous
series, from the lias up to the weald clay inclusive, in England, France, and
Germany, and in the supposed equivalent formations in North America. The animal to which
the present remnant belonged, existed at a period more recent than that of any of its
congeners hitherto discovered; the formation in which it occurs being generally referable
to a geological epoch more recent than any of the oolitic series.

We have compared our fossil with the following genera: - Moso- saurus,
Geosaurus, Megalosaurus, Iguanodon: Ichthyosaurus, and

Vol. IV. - 5 A

402
FOSSIL BONES FOUND IN THE

Plesiosaurus; from all of which it appears to be generically distinct; though
it bears a closer analogy to the vertebrŠ of the last named species than to any other.
The length of the axis of the bone is twice its diameter, being fourteen inches long and
seven inches broad. Its sides are slightly concave in the middle, and the weight of the
single vertebra is forty-four pounds. Allowing this individual to possess as many
vertebrŠ as the Plesiosaurus, that is sixty-six, without those of the tail, the weight of
the whole fossil skeleton may be fairly estimated as exceeding two tons; even supposing
each vertebra to weigh only thirty pounds instead of forty-four, and calculating the
weight of the head, extremities, pelvis, and tail to be collectively but a little heavier
than the spine alone.

Judging from the position and descending obliquity of the transverse apophyses,
and the small size of the canal for the spinal marrow, this vertebra must be referred to
the posterior part of the column, most probably to the lumbar region. This opinion is
strengthened by the coalition of the two foramina or fossŠ, which characterize the
inferior aspect of the vertebrŠ of the posterior part of the column in the spinal
bones of the Plesiosaurus;* in which respect these portions of the two fossils
closely resemble each other. 'They are also similar in the planes of the articulating
surfaces of the bodies of the vertebrŠ ; but our fossil differs totally from the same
portion of the Plesiosaurus in its proportions, the vertebrŠ of the latter being broader
than long, whereas the present specimen is twice as long as it is broad. All the superior
apophyses of the Plesiosaurus are attached by suture to their bodies; but there are no
marks of such a structure in our fossil. In the Plesiosaurus, the ribs are articulated
with the distal extremities of the transverse processes by a single tubercle. Reasoning
analogically, the same arrangement may be referred to the species under consideration, the
size of which is immensely superior to that of any of the Saurian or Cetaceous tribe
whatever. Judging from relative proportions, the Megalosaurus did not attain to more than
forty feet in length; the Iguanodon of Mr. Mantell did not exceed sixty feet; but the
individual

* All the vertebrŠ of the Plesiosaurus are characterized by two
foramina on their inner aspect, which approach each other as we descend the column, until
at last they form but one hole with a septum.

TERTIARY FORMATION OF LOUISIANA.
403

now produced could not have been less than from eighty to one hundred feet
long. According to the statement of Judge Bry, there were four hundred feet in extent,
nearly in a linear direction, marked by these fossils in the soil, which undoubtedly
include the remains of several individuals. If future discoveries of the extremities
(paddles) and of the jaws and teeth of this reptile, should confirm the indications I have
pointed out, we may suppose that the genus to which it belonged, will take the name, by
acclamation of "Basilosaurus."